Crew chief Travis Peterson will join Michael McDowell at Spire Motorsports next season, the team announced Tuesday.
McDowell and Peterson will leave the No. 34 team at Front Row Motorsports after this season to work on the No. 71 car at Spire Motorsports in 2025.
Peterson, 33, is in his second season as McDowell’s crew chief. They won last year’s race at the Indianapolis road course.
Peterson’s hiring completes the crew chief lineup for Spire Motorsports next season. Luke Lambert will remain as crew chief of the No. 77 car for Carson Hocevar. Rodney Childers will be the crew chief for the No. 7 car. The team has yet to announce a driver for the No. 7 car.
“It’s exciting to have Travis Peterson join Spire Motorsports,” said Spire Motorsports president Doug Duchardt in a statement. “The first time Travis and I worked together was when Greg Ives and Travis came to Hendrick Motorsports to be the crew chief and the engineer for the No. 88 car with Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. I got to spend time with Travis there as a young engineer and it’s exciting to see how he’s grown into a leader and a crew chief. He’s going to add tremendous depth to our crew chief lineup and be a great compliment to Luke and Rodney. I’m really excited to see what those three can do together.”
“It’s going to be exciting,” Peterson said in a statement from the team. “Rodney is a veteran of the sport. It is exciting for me to learn from a guy with that much success. Luke and I worked together when I was an engineer at Roush so we’re definitely familiar with one another. We have all seen each other around and we’ve all paid attention to each other. Combining all those ideas will be exciting. That is where a lot of strength is right now in the sport. The teamwork side of our group is going to be very valuable.”
Before joining Front Row Motorsports, Peterson spent five seasons as lead race engineer and what was then called Roush Fenway Racing.
“It is a very exciting opportunity,” said Peterson in a statement from the team. “Michael and I had the opportunity to meet with Doug and (Jeff) Dickerson and they really sold us on the vision of where Spire is going and how we could be big role players in building the organization.
“I think having that skin in the game was important to both of us. The opportunity in front of us has all the potential to be very rewarding. That was a huge part of it. I love the energy right now and the overall culture around Spire Motorsports. They’re investing in people and team ownership is highly engaged.
“The mindset is ‘We’re going to do what it takes to win and this is what we want to build. Here’s the vision, where we’re going, what we’re going to do to get there, and we want you to be part of it.’ That was the biggest selling point.”
